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Recap of Our First Day

Posted on October 27, 2008 by under Poker, Travel, Web.    

This is the worst cruise ever! There is no internet service. Ugh!
Picture 123

Just kidding! This isn’t the worst cruise ever. The part about having no internet is true, though. Brian and had planned on buying several minutes of internet service when we got on board. We stopped by the internet café a couple of times yesterday and they were closed for maintenance. We came by again today hoping to find things up and running, and also speak with someone about getting wireless internet, but they were still closed. This time there’s a sign that says they have experienced a malfunction and their services will not be available until further notice. Boo!

Anyway, I would have blogged yesterday but we were super tired. We had a really long day. As you know we all drove to Conroe, Texas (about an hour from the Houston port) on Saturday. The drive itself was pretty uneventful except for running into a place that sold “diet ice” (we scratched our heads at that one) and a gas station that had a high-tech Dyson hand dryer thing that had Brent totally amazed. We passed the time by playing my movie game and also Brent’s “think while you drink” famous people game. We made a couple of stops and before you knew it, we had arrived at the Baymont in Conroe.

We bunked with Dan and Brent that night. It wasn’t too bad except for the very disturbing sight of Brent and Dan spooning. I’m kidding!

Seriously, though, I think they had it worse because I snore — or so Brian says anyway. He did his fair share of snoring, mind you. Brian was prepared, though. He brought ear plugs. Brent had sleeping pills. Poor Dan had nothing. =P He was up at 6 AM, a good hour before our wake up call.
We got up that morning bright and early and were on our way ahead of schedule. We arrived at the port with no problems and, aside from some minor snags, embarkation went pretty smoothly. We did wander around the ship for a while before we found The Gallery, though. The Gallery is what the conference room where we are having the poker events is called.

Registration went slow at first, and then we got a whole mob a while after Kurt, Kathy, Shane, and Jen took off. Brent and Frank kept things in order, though. We had a good crowd going and even a few were came in as we were packing up. We had to shut down for the boat drill, my least favorite part of cruising. It gets so hot standing there with your life vest, shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of strangers. It couldn’t be over soon enough.

After the boat drill Brian and I had time to ourselves to do some exploring. We had dinner with the rest of the group and then we reconvened right after dinner to set up. Earlier in the afternoon we were talking about maybe not doing in poker that evening because we weren’t sure if the porters would come through for us. Naomi, the crew member who is assigned to our group, came through though. The six-foot tables were there and the chairs were set up around them. The porters delivered the table tops to the conference room as we had requested and all we had to do was take them out of their carry cases and put them on the tables.

We finished dinner right at 8 PM so we hardly had enough time to set up. A mob of anxious poker players had formed outside the room. Brian served as bouncer, keeping people out while the rest of us got the room ready. Kurt arrived before long with the important poker stuff. So much for not having poker and taking it easy on the first night. =P

We had four single-table sit-n-go (SNG) satellites and then a $1-$2 Texas hold’em cash game with a $50-min and $200-max buy in. I was at table 1 and started first. Brian’s table, table 2, started next but they actually finished last. Dan had a crazy table that finished way before everyone else. I hung around to wait for Brian when I got done. My table finished before his, but both of our tables took forever. Could be that we are inexperienced dealers. Who knows?

Anyway, it was about 1 AM when we were finally dismissed. What a long day! Needless to say, I was in no mood to blog last night. Today, I’ve had breakfast so my tummy is quite happy and I’ve got some time to kill so I figured I would take this opportunity to give you guys an update.

We are due back in the conference room a little after 11 AM to prep for today’s poker tournaments and cash games which will start at 1 PM. I will ask Kurt who the SNG winners were from last night so we can post the results on here. Stay tuned.

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